Ashley didn't sleep that night.
Even after Ace swaggered off with a fresh bandage wrapped over his ribs, after Nolan vanished into whatever corner of the clubhouse swallowed him whole, after the laughter in the bar dulled into drunken murmurs—she lay awake on a thin couch in one of the back rooms, staring at the cracked ceiling, listening to the hum of the fridge and the occasional sound of a bike out front. Her body still buzzed with adrenaline. Her fingers tingled, as if the tattoo gun were still in her hand.
She hadn't expected the work to come back to her so easily. The moment the needle had touched skin, she'd remembered everything—the rhythm, the patience, the way breathing had to steady before the line did. For a few minutes she hadn't been a girl running for her life or a h
